Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 38

[Footnote 860: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 482-483.]

[Footnote 861: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, p. 699.]

[Footnote 862: This was the view of a well-informed correspondent of the New York _Times_, August 10, 14, 16, 1860. From this point of view, Douglas's tour through Maine in August takes on special significance.]

[Footnote 863: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, 699.]

[Footnote 864: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 487, 489.]

[Footnote 865: New York _Times_, August 16, 1860.]

[Footnote 866: _Ibid._, August 29, 1860.]

[Footnote 867: This can hardly be regarded as a sober opinion.

Clingman had become convinced by conversation with Douglas that he was not making the canva.s.s in his own behalf, but in order to weaken and divide the South, so as to aid Lincoln. Clingman, Speeches and Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 868: Clingman, Speeches and Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 869: North Carolina _Standard_, September 5, 1860.]

[Footnote 870: Correspondent to New York _Times_, September 5, 1860.]

[Footnote 871: _Ibid._, September 7, 1860.]

[Footnote 872: New York _Tribune_, September 10, 1860. Greeley did Douglas an injustice when he accused him of courting votes by favoring a protective tariff in Pennsylvania. The misapprehension was doubtless due to a garbled a.s.sociated press dispatch.]

[Footnote 873: Clingman, Speeches and Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 874: New York _Times_, September 27, 1860.]

[Footnote 875: New York _Times_, September 13, 1860.]

[Footnote 876: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 877: His movements were still followed by the New York _Times_, which printed his list of appointments.]

[Footnote 878: Chicago _Times_ and _Herald_, October 9, 1860.]

[Footnote 879: Chicago _Times and Herald_, October 6, 1860.]

[Footnote 880: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, II, p. 700; see also Forney's Eulogy of Douglas, 1861.]

[Footnote 881: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 493.]

[Footnote 882: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 883: Chicago _Times and Herald_, October 24, 1860.]

[Footnote 884: Philadelphia _Press_, October 29, 1860.]

[Footnote 885: Savannah (Ga.) _Express_, quoted by Chicago _Times and Herald_, October 25, 1860.]

[Footnote 886: There was a bare reference to the Montgomery incident in the Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 12, 1860.]

[Footnote 887: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, p. 700.]

[Footnote 888: Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 13, 1860; Philadelphia _Press_, November 28, 1860.]

[Footnote 889: Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 19, 1860.]

[Footnote 890: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 297.]

[Footnote 891: Douglas and Bell polled 135,057 votes more than Breckinridge; see Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 328.]

CHAPTER XIX

THE MERGING OF THE PARTISAN IN THE PATRIOT

On the day after the election, the palmetto and lone star flag was thrown out to the breeze from the office of the Charleston _Mercury_ and hailed with cheers by the populace. "The tea has been thrown overboard--the revolution of 1860 has been initiated," said that ebullient journal next morning.[892] On the 10th of November, the legislature of South Carolina called a convention of the people to consider the relations of the Commonwealth "with the Northern States and the government of the United States." The instantaneous approval of the people of Charleston, the focus of public opinion in the State, left no doubt that South Carolina would secede from the Union soon after the 17th of December, when the convention was to a.s.semble. On November 23d, Major Robert Anderson, in command of Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor, urged the War Department to reinforce his garrison and to occupy also Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, saying, "I need not say how anxious I am--indeed, determined, so far as honor will permit--to avoid collision with the citizens of South Carolina.

Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent bloodshed than our being found in such an att.i.tude that it would be madness and folly to attack us." "That there is a settled determination," he continued, "to leave the Union, and to obtain possession of this work, is apparent to all."[893] No sane man could doubt that a crisis was imminent. Unhappily, James Buchanan was still President of the United States.

To those who greeted Judge Douglas upon his return to Washington, he seemed to be in excellent health, despite rumors to the contrary.[894]

Demonstrative followers insisted upon hearing his voice immediately upon his arrival, and he was not unwilling to repeat what he had said at New Orleans, here within hearing of men of all sections. The burden of his thought was contained in a single sentence: "Mr. Lincoln, having been elected, must be inaugurated in obedience to the Const.i.tution." "Fellow citizens," he said, in his rich, sonorous voice, sounding the key-note of his subsequent career, "I beseech you, with reference to former party divisions, to lay aside all political asperities, all personal prejudices, to indulge in no criminations or recriminations, but to unite with me, and all Union-loving men, in a common effort to save the country from the disasters which threaten it."[895]

In the midst of forebodings which even the most optimistic shared, Congress rea.s.sembled. Feeling was tense in both houses, but it was more noticeable in the Senate, where, hitherto, political differences had not been a barrier to social intercourse. Senator Iverson put into words what all felt: "Look at the spectacle exhibited on this floor.

How is it? There are Republican Northern senators upon that side. Here are Southern senators on this side. How much social intercourse is there between us? You sit upon your side, silent and gloomy; we sit upon ours with knit brows and portentous scowls.... Here are two hostile bodies on this floor; and it is but a type of the feeling that exists between the two sections."[896]

Southern senators hastened to lay bare their grievances. However much they might differ in naming specific, tangible ills, they all agreed upon the great cause of their apprehension and uneasiness. Davis voiced the common feeling when he said, "I believe the true cause of our danger to be that a sectional hostility has been subst.i.tuted for a general fraternity."[897] And his colleague confirmed this opinion.

Clingman put the same thought more concretely when he declared that the South was apprehensive, not because a dangerous man had been elected to the presidency; but because a President had been elected who was known to be a dangerous man and who had declared his purpose to war upon the social system of the South.[898]

With the utmost boldness, Southern senators announced the impending secession of their States. "We intend," said Iverson of Georgia speaking for his section, "to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.... In this state of feeling, divided as we are by interests, by a geographical feeling, by everything that makes two people separate and distinct, I ask why we should remain in the same Union together?"[899]

No Northern senator had better reason than Douglas to believe that these were not merely idle threats. The knowledge sobered him. In this hour of peril, his deep love for the Union welled up within him, submerging the partisan and the politician. "I trust," he said, rebuking a Northern senator, "we may lay aside all party grievances, party feuds, partisan jealousies, and look to our country, and not to our party, in the consequences of our action. Sir, I am as good a party man as anyone living, when there are only party issues at stake, and the fate of political parties to be provided for. But, Sir, if I know myself, I do not desire to hear the word party, or to listen to any party appeal, while we are considering and discussing the questions upon which the fate of the country now hangs."[900]

In this spirit Douglas welcomed from the South the recital of special grievances. "Give us each charge and each specification.... I hold that there is no grievance growing out of a nonfulfillment of const.i.tutional obligations, which cannot be remedied under the Const.i.tution and within the Union."[901] And when the Personal Liberty Acts of Northern States were cited as a long-standing grievance, he heartily denounced them as in direct violation of the letter and the spirit of the Const.i.tution. At the same time he contended that these acts existed generally in the States to which few fugitives ever fled, and that the Fugitive Slave Act was enforced nineteen out of twenty times. It was the twentieth case that was published abroad through the press, misleading the South. In fact, the present excitement was, to his mind, due to the inability of the extremes of North and South to understand each other. "Those of us that live upon the border, and have commercial intercourse and social relations across the line, can live in peace with each other." If the border slave States and the border free States could arbitrate the question of slavery, the Union would last forever.[902]

Arbitration and compromise--these were the words with which the venerable Crittenden of Kentucky, successor to Clay, now endeavored to rally Union-loving men. He was seconded by his colleague, Senator Powell, who had already moved the appointment of a special committee of thirteen, to consider the grievances between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. Douglas put himself unreservedly at the service of the party of compromise. It seemed, for the moment, as though the history of the year 1850 were to be repeated. Now, as then, the initiative was taken by a senator from the border-State of Kentucky. Again a committee of thirteen was to prepare measures of adjustment. The composition of the committee was such as to give promise of a settlement, if any were possible. Seward, Collamer, Wade, Doolittle, and Grimes, were the Republican members; Douglas, Rice, and Bigler represented the Democracy of the North. Davis and Toombs represented the Gulf States; Powell, Crittenden, and Hunter, the border slave States.[903]

On the 22d of December, the committee took under consideration the Crittenden resolutions, which proposed six amendments to the Const.i.tution and four joint resolutions. The crucial point was the first amendment, which would restore the Missouri Compromise line "in all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired." Could this disposition of the vexing territorial question have been agreed upon, the other features of the compromise would probably have commanded a.s.sent. But this and all the other proposed amendments were defeated by the adverse vote of the Republican members of the committee.[904]

The outcome was disheartening. Douglas had firmly believed that conciliation, or concession, alone could save the country from civil war.[905] When the committee first met informally[906] the news was already in print that the South Carolina convention had pa.s.sed an ordinance of secession. Under the stress of this event, and of others which he apprehended, Douglas had voted for all the Crittenden amendments and resolutions, regardless of his personal predilections.

"The prospects are gloomy," he wrote privately, "but I do not yet despair of the Union. _We can never acknowledge the right of a State to secede and cut us off from the ocean and the world, without our consent._ But in view of impending civil war with our brethren in nearly one-half of the States of the Union, I will not consider the question of force and war until all efforts at peaceful adjustment have been made and have failed. The fact can no longer be disguised that many of the Republican leaders desire war and disunion under pretext of saving the Union. They wish to get rid of the Southern senators in order to have a majority in the Senate to confirm Lincoln's appointments; and many of them think they can hold a permanent Republican ascendancy in the Northern States, but not in the whole Union. For partisan reasons, therefore, they are anxious to dissolve the Union, if it can be done without making them responsible before the people. I am for the Union, and am ready to make any reasonable sacrifice to save it. No adjustment will restore and preserve peace _which does not banish the slavery question from Congress forever_ and place it beyond the reach of Federal legislation. Mr. Crittenden's proposition to extend the Missouri line accomplishes this object, and hence I can accept it now for the same reasons that I proposed it in 1848. I prefer our own plan of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, however."[907]

The propositions which Douglas laid before the committee proved to be even less acceptable than the Crittenden amendments. Only a single, insignificant provision relating to the colonizing of free negroes in distant lands, commended itself to a majority of the committee.[908]

All hope of an agreement had now vanished. Sad at heart, Douglas voted to report the inability of the committee to agree upon any general plan of adjustment.[909] Yet he did not abandon all hope; he was not yet ready to admit that the dread alternative must be accepted. He joined with Crittenden in replying to a dispatch from the South: "We have hopes that the rights of the South, and of every State and section, may be protected within the Union. Don't give up the ship.